


The Mandela Effect

by ApexOnHigh



Category: Homicide: Life on the Street
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Post-Series, Recreational Drug Use, the mandela effect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-07 06:05:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13428396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApexOnHigh/pseuds/ApexOnHigh
Summary: It's just an interesting theory. A hypothetical.Isn't it?





	The Mandela Effect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreenPhoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenPhoenix/gifts).



Night had fallen over the chilly winter streets of Baltimore, a city on edge thanks to heightened tensions between the community and the police. But Sergeant (hopefully soon, Lieutenant) Tim Bayliss immediately relaxed and warmed upon entering the familiar surroundings of The Waterfront. This place had been home—in so many, complicated ways—for such a long time that it always was a comfort to return here again.

Especially when he knew he could find his partner (no, his _husband—_ he was still getting used to that) John behind the counter, waiting for him with an easy smile and a drink at the ready.

"Long day today, Timmy?"

"Ah…Do I look it?"

"A little more so than usual."

Tim tossed his coat over a bar stool in the corner, took in the look of their crowd for the evening. Seemed like the usual assortment of mid-week regulars at the bar, several tables with couples enjoying their dinners. Not a bad turnout for the evening. That should have John in a good mood. Tim wouldn't have to hear him bitching about bills and the latest trends and promotions they needed to jump on.

Tim joined John behind the bar and offered him a quick hug around the waist and kiss in greeting before taking that much needed drink. "Breaking in those green detectives I was telling you about is taking longer than I expected. Particularly with everything else going on right now."

"And yet, I distinctly recall you complaining for months about being understaffed."

"I know, I know. Curse the Monkey's Paw." Tim downed his whiskey, welcoming the sharp burn down his throat. John was already at the taps to pour him a beer to follow it. "I was just hoping they might finally listen and send us some people with a bit more experience."

"Dream on. But I know you'll do your best to break 'em in, Sergeant."

"Yeah," Tim snorted. "Eternally my favorite part of the job."

Tim took off his jacket and tie. The change in uniform complete, he switched from police-work to bartending duties for the rest of the night. Cleaning glasses and closing out tabs, chatting up a new-in-town customer looking for neighborhood dining recommendations, it was a comfortable routine while he went over his day with his partner.

John, as usual, was a good listener and sounding board for whatever work matters troubled Tim. After all, he had put in his twenty-five years before submitting his retirement papers. John continued his interest in criminal investigation, working since then to write online (and for some more ‘out there' publications) about various unsolved crimes and supposed conspiracies. Tim didn't always—or even often—agree with John's more out-there ideas. But he knew it was important for him to stay intellectually active, always searching for answers to the questions others didn't think to ask.

He told Tim it kept him young—or at least, not "decrepit and feeble-minded in my old age."

To which Tim typically responded with a kiss and a caress of his lover's silver hair—and a joking, if macabre, promise that he'd honor his promise to put John out of both their miseries if _that_ ever happened.

As Tim looked over the liquor inventory on the bar shelves, seeing if they needed to add anything to their usual stock order for the week, he noticed the copy of _Paranoia_ magazine behind the bar amidst John's things. "Anything interesting in the kook press today?" Tim asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer. Though every once in a while John actually listened to his voice of reason if he got off on too far of a tangent.

"Actually I was reading and researching an intriguing theory today. The Mandela Effect."

"Mandela...as in Nelson?"

"The one and only. Tell me: When did he die?"

"Uh…" Tim thought, trying to pinpoint his memories of the subject. "A couple years ago, wasn't it? I forget."

John nodded, as he continued to work on mixing a cocktail. "That's what most people know—or rather, believe to be the case in this universe. But there are a sizable number of people around the world who, if asked, maintain that Nelson Mandela died during the 1980s. They can even recall seeing his funeral on television: who was in attendance, who spoke, who sang... The details of their memories are consistent and similar. Even when they've never met anyone else who shared this same, collective, ‘false' belief in his early demise."

"Well, that is freaky," Tim had to admit.

"And it's not the only instance of such an occurrence. People collectively ‘mis-remember' the names of popular books or products, or scenes from movies, and are absolutely convinced they are correct. It's always the same one factor being off in the same way, too. Berenstain Bears, for example, ending a-i-n or e-i-n. If C-3P0 consistently has one silver leg or not."

"This is all very fascinating, John. But what does any of it mean? Besides the fact that we tend, as mere mortal human beings, to have glitches in our memories that are common to other people," Tim tried to reason.

"Well, this theory supposes that each of these ‘glitches' marks a place where a person—or group of people, in the Mandela case—have slipped between parallel universes. It could have been by accident, a rift between realities. A scientific experiment somewhere gone wrong…or maybe even that none of this is real and we're all existing within some elaborate computer simulation or hologram, which sometimes encounters errors in programming, or imperfect reboots."

Tim frowned. "Sounds like something out of a _Star Trek_ episode. Why has it got hold of your interest?"

John shrugged. "I suppose it's just fascinating to contemplate, is all."

"Hmph. Could explain how we ended up with Trump as president. Is there any way we can slip over to the world where _that_ didn't happen?"

"If I can find the answer to that, my dear Timmy, we're booking the first tickets on that parallel universe train."

Turned out the drink John was mixing was for himself, and he raised it in toast to Tim. He met the toast and after taking a drink, John said, "Man the fort for a couple minutes, let me get you some dinner."

"Some of that curried pumpkin soup if there's any still left," Tim called after John. He looked at the magazine again, smiled and shook his head. A curious theory, but not one he would put much mental effort into contemplating. All things considered, he couldn't imagine a life different from the one he had here with John.

* * *

Tim slept soundly that night, in their bed, in this home they had made for themselves above the Waterfront. John rarely slept so deep as his partner did—that had always been the case, his brain finding it hard to shut off and rest for the night. Sometimes Timmy's presence beside him was enough to silence his anxious thoughts, or a round of enthusiastic lovemaking to exhaust the body, quiet the mind.

Tonight wasn't one of those nights. Too much had been on his mind earlier and now he lay awake, staring up at the ceiling, fretting over things he could not change…and the things that he might have, long ago. He slipped out of bed, left the bedroom for his office down the hallway so that he wouldn't disturb or awaken Tim. There he could crack a window, get out his stash, light up a bowl and indulge in a little herbal relaxation in private.

One of the best benefits of retirement from the police force, John frequently mused to himself (and sometimes aloud, to Tim's dismay): no more need to be paranoid about random drug testing on the job.

He breathed in deep and exhaled into the night air, letting his thoughts flow out along with the pungent smoke. Something about the Mandela Effect theory _had_ rattled his brain, made him think back on the various twists and turns in his own life.

He was quite happy, content with where he was now. It had been a good life, especially these past almost two decades with Tim. It was a life he would not have predicted for himself when he'd been younger, chasing love down so many wrong directions, refusing to acknowledge his true desires.

But was it a life that had taken a path of unplanned divergence? Was there another him, another ‘John Munch' out there in some other universe living a different life that this?

He wondered. Because sometimes he dreamed of things that didn't make sense to him—and not in the typical, nonsensical way of Morpheus' realm. But in a way that felt too familiar, too real. Recurrent dreams of places he'd never been, things he'd never done, and yet they were so vivid he couldn't dismiss them as meaningless.

Dreams of a life lived in a different city, of leaving Baltimore to start over somewhere new. Of different co-workers and cases, criminals he'd never chased. Of friends and lovers he'd never known.

He had even, for a while, kept a dream diary, trying to record these fleeting glimpses to see if he could decipher their meaning. All he had been able to identify was the seeming point of divergence—when the dreams had begun.

The night of his last marriage, to Billie Lou. When wedded bliss had quickly soured, and he'd gone to the Waterfront, unable to face the mistake he'd made, the knowledge this marriage was doomed just as his previous three had been.

When Tim had called him outside for a walk, to talk, and voiced his suspicions about John's guilt in the murder of Gordon Pratt.

John hadn't known, at that moment, what had brought on Tim's admission. And he'd stood there in stunned silence as Tim had started to walk away from him, knowing he had but two choices.

To leave. To run away, get out of town, start over somewhere new where these ghosts of the past would hopefully leave him be forever.

Or to go after Tim and confess. Acknowledge the sin he'd committed and yet still felt no remorse for, and put it on his friend to decide what to do with that information.

A moment's decision. A decision that, perhaps, had altered the path of his life in a more significant way than he'd realized until now.

He'd chosen to go to Tim, even if it had meant facing justice at long last. Already had the joke scripted in his head about prison being a better life sentence than having to spend one more night with Billie Lou.

But what had happened next had been what he could not have expected at all—Tim following John's admittance by confessing his own dark thoughts, if not yet-executed deeds.

_I'm not going to turn you in, John._

_You're not?_

_No. You wanted to know why I brought it up, after all these years? Why I needed to hear how you could justify it? It's because…I could use your help. I want to do the same thing. To Luke Ryland. Before he can kill and claim another innocent victim._

_You want_ **_me_ ** _…to help_ **_you_ ** _…commit murder._

_And get away with it. And learn how to live with the fact that I took a life without it making me want to take my own._

A moment of pause, consideration. Choices to make that could and no doubt had changed the course of so many lives.

John had taken Tim's hand and told him, _I'll help you. If only because I don't think I can take seeing another person I care about end their own life._

_You mean, like Crosetti._

_For one. Not only him. But those are confessions, stories for some other night._

Stories he'd eventually shared, once they'd begun to make their plans. Growing closer. And as John had extricated himself from the mess of things with Billie Lou, he'd found himself drawn further into Tim's life.

They shared their first kiss while standing over Luke Ryland's dead body. First time making love later that night, not so much driven by the heat of the kill but a need to reaffirm life.

Thus it always would be, for them.

John sighed, flicked his lighter, took one more hit, letting it all turn to ash. A calming heaviness was slowly starting to come over him now, and in a few minutes he would return to bed (brushing his teeth first, of course, so Tim wouldn't complain about his having weed breath in the morning.) Perhaps it was all just a crazy theory, like Tim said. Every choice we made, every small decision, changed the course of the future in some way. One couldn't live forever paralyzed by regrets or fears, questions and "what ifs".

But if there was another John Munch out there, in some other universe parallel to this one, he hoped he was content with the choices and decisions he'd made. Wherever they had led him.

He closed the window, and sealed away those thoughts for another night.


End file.
